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Matrescence and performance
Hardback
€115.93
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- Book Synopsis
- An exploration of what performance can do to expand conventional representations of becoming a mother. Maternal bodies and processes of pregnancy, childbirth and sustenance have historically been depicted in art and literature as variously uncanny, abject, grotesque, monstrous, and hybrid. Societal conventions and myths around what makes a good or bad mother have limited the representations of maternal ambivalence and labour. Lived experiences of matrescence as depicted by mothers themselves have remained almost invisible with little exposure in galleries or mainstream art and media. Challenging complex and disparaging representations, or the erasure and invisibility of experiences of matrescence altogether, contemporary mother/artists working in the field of performance use their live bodies to subvert dominant images of conventional myths of motherhood. Using strategies of mimesis, liveness, embodiment, relationality, and performativity to render their own matrescent bodies, these artists explore historically pejorative theoretical concepts and aesthetics in new, feminist ways. This book frames performance as a site where becoming a mother can be understood as both a becoming and an unbecoming to expand understandings of matrescence.
- About The Author
- Dr Laura Bissell is an Athenaeum research fellow and lecturer in contemporary performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Laura is the author/editor of Performance in a Pandemic (Routledge, 2021), Making Routes (Triarchy Press, 2021) and Bubbles: Reflections on Becoming Mother (Luath Press, 2021) and a poetry collection, A-Z of Sites of Love and Loss. Laura's research interests include: technology, ecology, interdisciplinarity, matrescence, feminism and journeys, and she has presented her research on contemporary practices at conferences nationally and internationally. Laura has a longstanding research collaboration with David Overend called Making Routes: a project connecting researchers and artists who are exploring mobilities in creative and challenging ways. Laura is currently writing a monograph on matrescence and performance (Intellect, 2026) and co-editing the International Journal of Performance Art and Digital Media's Special Edition: 'Matrescence and Media'. Contact: Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, 100 Renfrew Street, Glasgow G2 3DB, UK.
- Product Details
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- ISBN
- 9781835952269
- Format
- Hardback
- Publisher
- Intellect Books, (03 April 2026)
- Number of Pages
- 190
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 244 x 170 mm
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